Eric Schmidt, who formerly served as CEO of Google until 2011,
was a guest speaker on the topic of “Technology as a Spark for
Growth” at Johns Hopkins University when he made the remarks
Wednesday afternoon.

"I believe there's a real chance that we can eliminate
censorship and the possibility of censorship in a decade,”
Schmidt, 58, told an audience on the school’s Washington, DC
campus, according to Reuters’ Alina Selyukh.

"First they try to block you; second, they try to infiltrate
you; and third, you win,” he said. “I really think that's
how it works. Because the power is shifted.”

Schmidt’s remarks were made months after a he embarked on a
personal trip to North Korea, where he told Wednesday’s crowd
that he attempted to get people in the largely disconnected
country to try and see what a powerful tool the internet is.

"My view is that if we can get some connectivity, then they'll
begin to open the country, they'll begin to understand other
systems,” he said.

But according to Schmidt, he was unsuccessful in that mission.
"It's clear that we failed. But we'll try again,” he said.
With regards to neighboring China, however, where the colloquial
“Great Firewall” has hindered open internet access to the
country’s one-billion inhabitants, Schmidt said people there and
in other nations where censorship and surveillance are prominent
could help end that oppression by resorting to encryption.

"The solution to government surveillance is to encrypt
everyone," Schmidt said, according to Reuters.

Selyukh added in her report that Schmidt boasted of Google’s
recent decision to increase the length and complexity of its own
encryption keys, and equated the public’s necessity to constantly
encrypt their data by new standards as a “game of cat and
mouse” between governments and internet users.

Aside from the situations in North Korea and China, however,
Schmidt’s comments come in the midst of an ongoing scandal
pertaining to the United States government’s persistent use of
tools and tactics to eavesdrop on the online communications of
foreigners. Leaked classified documents disclosed to the media
earlier this year by former contractor Edward Snowden suggested
that the US National Security Agency was gaining direct access to
the servers of internet companies, including Google, for alleged
intelligence gathering and counterterrorism purposes, and
subsequent revelations have indicated that the NSA even
unlawfully tapped into the foreign networks of Silicon Valley
companies to collect customer data in an decrypted state.

During the lecture, Schmidt suggested that the spread of
encryption tools and the subsequent knowledge needed to employ
them properly could eventually end censorship.

"It's pretty clear to me that government surveillance and the
way in which governments are doing this will be here to stay in
some form, because it's how the citizens will express themselves,
and the governments will want to know what they're doing,"
Schmidt said. "In that race, I think the censors will lose,
and I think that people would be empowered."